Jeremy Leggett, a former oil man, wrote an article in ‘The Independent’ (20/1/06) entitled, ‘What they don’t want you to know about the coming oil crisis.’ He wrote:
‘A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of an acute, civilisation-changing energy crisis. … We have allowed oil to become vital to virtually everything we do. Ninety per cent of all our transportation, whether by land, air or sea, is fuelled by oil. Ninety-five per cent of all goods in shops involve the use of oil. Ninety-five per cent of all our food products require oil use.’

The world consumes more than 80 million barrels of oil a day, 29 billion barrels a year. This figure is rising fast, as it has done for decades. The US government expects that global demand will grow to around 120 million barrels a day, 43 billion barrels a year, by 2025. However there is no way that the oil industry can produce this amount of oil. Leggett says, ‘The most basic of the foundations of our assumptions of future economic well being is rotten. Our society is in a state of collective denial that has no precedent in history, in terms of its scale and implications.’

The modern industrial world has been built on the supply of energy keeping the electricity supply to our homes and work places running and fuelling our transport system which ensures that goods and people can move from place to place around the world. Without the energy sources – coal, oil, gas and nuclear power – the whole system crumbles.

In America that possibility is beginning to be considered by those who see the phenomenon known as ‘Peak Oil’ as the next big threat to the western way of life. Peak Oil is the point at which oil production reaches a plateau before it declines while demand for oil consumption continues to rise. Once worldwide demand for oil outpaces worldwide production (of oil by a significant margin the price of oil will sky-rocket, oil-dependent economies will crumble, and resource wars will explode.

Matthew Savinar has written an article on this subject on the internet site [http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net]. He writes, ‘Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global ‘Peak Oil’.’

When will this happen? According to Savinar, ‘Some geologists expect 2005 to be the last year of the cheap-oil bonanza, while many estimates coming out of the oil industry indicate ‘a seemingly unbridgeable supply-demand gap opening up after 2007,’ which will lead to major fuel shortages and increasingly severe blackouts beginning around 2008-2012.’ Richard Heinberg, in his article ‘Smoking Gun: The CIA’s Interest in Peak Oil’ says ‘A growing consensus of petroleum geologists places this event in the mid-range period of 2006 to 2015.’

Savinar dismisses alternatives to oil as sources of power for the current world system as fantasy. Green alternatives like solar, wind and wave power produce only a tiny fraction of the power now available through oil. Hydrogen as an alternative to oil does not work either due to the huge costs of producing it and the vast problems of storing it. He says there is no time to develop the huge infrastructure needed to switch from an oil based industrial system to an alternative one. Nor is there the political will or the financial capability.

Savinar sees an inevitable collapse of the US economy coming which will drag down the rest of the world. ‘As the driver of the world’s economy, the demise of the US will take down other industrialized countries. The financial dislocations wrought by the coming oil shocks could set the stage for a series of destabilizing resource wars and ‘currency insurgencies’, in much the same way Germany’s financial meltdown during the Weimar Republic of the 1920s set the stage for the rise of Third Reich in the 1930s and World War II in the 1940s.’

Added to all this is the fact that the present suppliers of most of the world’s oil are anything but reliable. 70% of global proven reserves of oil are to be found in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest reserves with 264.2 billion barrels of proven oil reserves (25% of the world total). Oil from this area is the easiest to extract and export. Recent finds of oil in the Caspian Sea area and in Central Asia are not as great as was originally hoped and these areas are landlocked so getting the oil out involves building pipelines through such unstable regions as Afghanistan to the south or the Caucasus region to the west. The vulnerability of pipelines to terrorism has been shown by the frequent attacks mounted by insurgents in Iraq.

A disruption anywhere could cause market panic and spiralling prices. Texas oil analyst Matt Simmons has written a book ‘Twilight in the Desert’ which warns that the skyrocketing price of oil could plunge the world into war. One spark which could ignite this fire is Iran’s nuclear programme which is causing worry about possible disruptions of the supply of oil from the Middle East. In January 2006 Iran threatened to cut oil supplies if Europe continued to meddle in what it sees as its right to develop a nuclear programme. It has also threatened to block shipping through the Straits of Hormuz at the entrance of the Persian Gulf if its nuclear facilities are attacked. Every day, 15 million barrels of oil pass in tankers through these narrow Straits.

Production of oil is in decline in more than 50 oil-producing nations, including the USA and Britain. Discoveries of large oil fields are decreasing year by year, while the demand for oil is constantly increasing. In particular China and India are already having a major impact on both oil resources and the environment on account of their huge populations and growing numbers of people prospering as a result of economic development. There have been large finds of oil in Russia with deep wells sunk in Siberia. However Russia could well prove an unreliable source of supply.

January 2006 began with a crisis caused by Russia demanding a huge increase in charges to Ukraine for its gas supply and threatening to cut supplies if the price was not paid. Many saw this as Russia punishing Ukraine for its pro Western policies. But the threat to turn off the gas supplies in the middle of winter did not just affect Ukraine. For a few days countries across Europe watched nervously as the crisis unfolded.

The deputy chairman of Gazprom, the giant Russian company that controls the flow of Russian gas to the west came to London to reassure Britain that there would be no risk of disruption to British gas supplies. The very next day, temperatures in Moscow broke a 50-year record, plunging to minus 30C. Gas normally exported was diverted to the home front. Supplies to the West fell. Nervousness on this subject was increased by news reports that Gazprom is seeking to buy a controlling share in British Gas.

As huge price rises for gas supply are announced, the prospect of the source of this supply being in the hands of a power which once confronted the West during the Cold War is hardly reassuring. After all Russian President Putin once wrote a thesis saying that Russia could use its energy resources to regain its global power. Russia supplies a quarter of all the gas used in Europe and 90% of it flows through Ukraine. This supply is scheduled to increase when the giant pipeline now being built under the North Sea from Russia to Germany is completed. Britain will be at the end of the line for this gas which will become vital as our North Sea oil and gas decline.

A crisis caused by oil resources being cut off or a huge surge in the price of oil and gas could plunge the world into chaos. The Bible prophesies such a time coming at the end of this age and compares it to the birth pangs of a pregnant woman. In 1 Thessalonians 5.1-3 Paul writes: ‘But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labour pains upon a pregnant woman’.

When a woman goes into labour a process begins which will lead to the birth of the child. She knows the signs of the impending birth are taking place, but she does not yet see the child and she does not know how long the process will go on for. Today the signs of the second coming of Jesus Christ are taking place – not just some of them but all of them. We do not know how long it will be before the crisis we are describing in this article explodes across the earth, but there is no doubt that it will. When it does the world will enter a period of time described in the Bible as the great tribulation. Jesus describes this period in Matthew 24.21-22: ‘For then there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.’

Anyone can see that our society is built on shaky foundations. Modern technological society lines up with the well known words of Jesus:

‘Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the wind descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.’ Jesus speaking in Matthew 7.24-27.

Sooner or later the storm will come and this house will crash. What will happen to you and me then? The world situation today is pushing humanity towards an unprecedented crisis in human history which will affect all nations of the earth and bring the possibility of the end of all life on earth if God did not step in through the return of Jesus ‘shortening’ those days and bringing the time of human mis-management of the planet to an end.

Despite all this there is a glorious hope for the future. Jesus said ‘When these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.’ Luke 21.28. These things have begun to happen so we should look to the return of the Lord Jesus as the hope for the world. While people without faith are described by Jesus as experiencing heart failure for fear at the things which are coming on the earth (Luke 21.26), the believer has a totally different expectation: ‘We should live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.’ Titus 2.12-14.

As the lights go out all over the world, the light of faith and hope in Jesus will never go out in the heart of those who really believe in Him. In order to escape the coming collapse of oil based industrial society, Mr Savinar, in the article already quoted suggests that people should ‘relocate to an area as least vulnerable to these issues as possible’. But for many people that will not be a viable option and it will not save you anyway. As in the days of Noah there will be no escape.

But the Lord has a plan to relocate His people: ‘For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.’ 1 Thessalonians 4.16-17.

This event, known as the Rapture of the Church, will take place unexpectedly and unannounced like a thief coming in the night. At that moment those who are saved will be taken to a place of safety before the judgements fall on the earth in the great tribulation period.

In the light of all this there is only one hope for the world. The return of Jesus. The human race has blown our chances of saving the world by ourselves already.

The world system today will not stand because it is on the wrong foundations. But when everything else is shaken, God’s kingdom cannot be shaken. In order to enter God’s kingdom Jesus says ‘You must be born again’ (John 3.7) not physically but spiritually by turning from sin and unbelief to faith in God who raised Jesus from the dead when He had paid the price for our sins and will raise with Him all who put their trust in Him.
If you have not yet made that step I urge you to do so without delay. Here is a prayer which you can say to accept salvation through Jesus the Messiah.

‘Dear Heavenly Father, I admit that I am a sinner and need your forgiveness. I believe that Jesus the Messiah died in my place, shedding His blood to pay for my sins, and that He rose again from the dead to give me eternal life. I am willing right now to turn from my sin and accept Jesus the Messiah as my personal Saviour and Lord. I commit my life to you and ask you to send the Holy Spirit into my life, to fill me and to take control and to help me become the kind of person you want me to be. Thank you Father for loving me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Much of the information in this article is taken from a new book written by Tony Pearce, ‘The House on the Sand’.

Resource investors were not immune to the pain of the latest recession, but, for them, it was more like tearing off a Band-Aid than slowly peeling one away.

The S&P Global 1200, a stock index providing a reliable measure of worldwide equity markets, peaked on Oct. 31, 2007. We all know what happened next: financial crisis, fear and economic decline. The bottom for global equities, or at least what we hope was the bottom, arrived some 16 months later. Natural resources stocks took a similar plunge, but more rapidly. The S&P Global Natural Resources Index, comprising 60 of the largest energy, metals and agricultural product companies around the world, peaked on May 19, 2008, and hit bottom (we hope) on Nov. 20, 2008, a mere six months after the slide began.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is generally regarded as an authority on U.S. recessions, says the United States entered recession in December 2007. Stock markets around the world gradually began to reflect this through lower prices, although recession wasn’t a foregone conclusion at the time. Even the NBER only makes an official announcement about the beginning of a recession long after it is under way.

Against this recessionary backdrop, resource stocks continued to climb well into 2008. Conventional wisdom tells us an approaching recession should have brought the opposite result. Resources stocks are cyclical, and economic weakness would ordinarily be a grave threat.

However, the effect was delayed for resources stocks because crude oil prices steadily rose throughout 2007 and the first half of 2008. Oil and gas prices heavily impact most natural resources stock funds (and indices) because the energy sector typically accounts for about two-thirds of these funds and benchmarks.

The reasons for oil’s price spike in 2008 were heavily debated, probably because of the anger it generated – recall your frustration at the pump as gasoline approached $5 per gallon. Some believed the prices resulted from high demand or expected future demand from the fast-growing Chinese and Indian economies. Others pointed to supply disruptions in Nigeria and Iraq or speculative investment in oil futures. The Organziation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was blamed for restraining its production levels in an effort to keep prices high and maintain profit margins trimmed by a declining U.S. dollar.

In reality, oil prices were probably high because of some combination of these factors and a growing consensus that long-term demand growth was going to outpace capacity. Whatever theory you accept, the fact is that oil prices were elevated, propping up resources stocks long after recession expectations had taken hold.

Crude oil peaked at more than $147 per barrel during trading on July 11, 2008, before plunging to under $31 on Dec. 22, 2008. Natural gas peaked at around the same time and suffered a decline almost as spectacular. Not surprisingly, natural resources stock portfolios heavily invested in companies locating, extracting and producing these resources went for a ride as well. The S&P Global Natural Resources Index lost 57 percent, peak to trough, over a stretch lasting 185 days.

By comparison, the S&P Global 1200 shed 59.2 percent, peak to trough. It took 495 days.

From December 2007 through the first quarter of 2010, a period covering the entire recession and part of the subsequent recovery, resources stocks actually performed better than global equities, as measured by the S&P indices. Excluding dividends, global equities declined 25.1 percent, while resources declined 20.7 percent. Part of the disparity may result from differences in the sizes of the companies in the two indices. The Global Natural Resources Index contains larger companies than the Global 1200 index, and thus may be less volatile. The strong showing for resources was nonetheless surprising, and occurred despite a complete lack of price recovery in natural gas, where innovation in drilling techniques over the last decade has expanded potential supply and alleviated long-term scarcity concerns.

Cyclical stocks such as resources generally exaggerate the market’s movements, but this was not true of resources stocks during the recession. Resources stocks lived up to their reputation of fierce swings, but did not surpass the losses experienced by global equities. Further, when pessimism and panic finally gave way to rationality, and the world’s major stock markets slowly rebounded, resources began their ascent several months before global equities did.

What kept resources from experiencing a longer and deeper bust?

While large swaths of the Western world were dealing with negative gross domestic product, some resource-hungry developing nations were still growing – and quickly.

China, second in energy consumption only to the United States, managed more than 9 percent GDP growth in 2008 and close to 9.5 percent in 2009. Even in the depths of the recession in the early quarters of 2009, China’s economy was growing at a rate greater than 6 percent.

Within weeks of the resources bottom, China unveiled a $586 billion economic stimulus program ramping up spending on housing, infrastructure, agriculture, health care and social welfare. It was designed to prop up demand and keep China’s economy growing at a high single-digit rate.

The program was good news for resources. Fast-growing economies burn through significantly more resources; they need materials to build factories and energy to power machines. The government was routing yuan directly to housing and infrastructure, two of the most resource-intensive sectors. The spending also supplied the expanding middle class with better jobs and increased payments from social safety nets. This meant more citizens with the ability to afford housing, or to move to better housing, and more materials and energy required in the future to build homes and keep the lights on.

The Chinese economy wasn’t alone in maintaining robust growth during the global recession. India’s economy grew at 7.4 percent in 2008 and 6.1 percent in 2009. Back-to-back fiscal stimulus packages in December 2008 and January 2009, aimed at dampening the effect of the global slowdown, boosted infrastructure and real estate spending.

Inflation expectations were also in natural resources’ corner. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 authorized the U.S. Treasury to spend up to $700 billion to help ailing financial institutions. Governments across Europe followed suit with similar but smaller pledges to support their banking systems. The next year, the United States was back on its spending spree, with a $787 billion fiscal stimulus to kick-start the slowing economy. Fears of surging government debt in the United States and Europe led investors to seek hard assets to protect their purchasing power. Gold prices actually increased in 2008, a year in which double-digit commodity price declines were standard, and many price declines approached or exceeded 50 percent.

As precipitous as the decline was for resources stocks during the recession, it could have been worse. The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index, a 30-stock sample from economically sensitive industries such as automobiles, chemicals and machinery, declined roughly 74 percent between its peak and trough closing prices.

Factors such as continued economic growth in developing Asia, stimulus plans geared toward “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects, and inflation expectations likely offset the cyclicality of resources stocks during the recession. The biggest difference between the performance of natural resources stocks and the stock market as a whole was not really overall performance, but the timing and length of decline. The fall of resources stocks was more compressed and more dramatic. It wasn’t as drawn-out, but that didn’t make it any less painful for investors.

One of the most important things that impacts us in personal, professional, and financial life is an effect called confirmation bias. Put more simply, this is a tendency for people to only seek out information that confirms what they already think. In many cases, people will examine the same information and come to wildly different conclusions because of their internal biases. Naturally, this makes objective thought and analysis extremely difficult to perform since we are not always the best judge of ourselves.

This effect becomes especially dangerous when it enters the financial arena. When evaluating investment strategies, many people (such as Robert Merton and Myron Scholes of Long-Term Capital Management) fail to examine possibilities that lay outside of their theory. Many hedge funds and derivatives traders create highly complex formula’s based on many assumptions that are usually true, but not always true. These financial models typically use large amounts of leverage, and are prone to tremendous losses if market movements do not match the model assumptions. Another iteration of this self-delusion is the tremendous run-up in housing prices that was based on the assumption home prices would never go down. There was ample evidence to indicate that housing prices could not increase forever, but it was completely ignored in favor of self-delusion by the government agencies, financial institutions, and borrowers who perpetuated the financial crisis.

The impact of confirmation bias also enters the political sphere on a regular basis. There are Nobel laureate economists in favor of higher taxes who claim to have evidence in support of their position and Nobel laureate economists in favor of lower taxes who also have evidence in support of their claim. When the government funds research studies, it is not surprising that the results of the study almost always come back confirming the original theory or hypothesis. Other ways that this phenomenon works its way into the political landscape is through metrics that are impossible to prove or disprove. One of the most famous is an ambiguous employment metric of “jobs created or saves”. It is impossible to objectively define a “saved” job, so the intellectual delusion is perpetuated.

The confirmation bias effect has even found its way into the scientific domain, as demonstrated most prominently in the climate science movement. What used to be called “global warming” has now been changed “climate change”. This makes every observation of temperature a “confirmation” of the hypothesis since the climate by its very nature is always changing. It should not come as any sort of surprise that the so-called “consensus” concerning climate change was completely fictional. It only resulted from suppressing voices of dissent and stifling debate so that the self-delusion of confirmation bias could continue without restraint. If the science was so strong, then it should be able to withstand a rigorous debate. If the proponents of the theory are not willing to debate, then it stands to reason that the science is not very strong.

In the end, it is and always will be extremely difficult to be objective. As astute individuals, we must learn to recognize the impacts of confirmation bias in ourselves and in the world around us. Since most of us do not possess the ability to change the world, we must squarely focus on the things that we do have the power to change… namely ourselves. When making an important decision, it is imperative to ‘step back’ and determine whether there is something we haven’t thought of that could squash our plans. By actively avoiding the bias of confirmation, it will help us to make more informed decisions and live a more fulfilled life.